A few months ago, the Institute of Databases and Information Systems (DBIS) and the Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) started a research project in which they want to develop a platform for tracking the individual tinnitus perception of patients with a smartphone application. Using a website in conjunction with their smartphone shall allow patients to systematically track the variation of their tinnitus and to find out how it is associated with their daily routine and activities. Recently, the project partners released a first version of a smartphone app that allows tracking the tinnitus during the everyday routine. The Track Your Tinnitus app is available in the iTunes® App Store^TM and the Google Play^TM store in English as well as German language. More details can be found on the web site www.trackyourtinnitus.org.

Background

Tinnitus is defined as an auditory perception in the absence of any physical source. Almost everyone will experience some form of tinnitus at least once in the lifetime and in most of the cases this sensation disappears within seconds or minutes. However, in approximately 10% of the population the tinnitus persists for more than six months and can remain chronic for the rest of the life. Even in the chronic case, the perception of the tinnitus can vary during the day and between days being sometimes more and sometimes less perceivable. The variation can depend on many factors including environmental noise, the daily activity, stressful life events, time of the day and much more.

Many people have a good feeling of their tinnitus variation and can reconstruct it from memory to some extent - but how was the timeline of the variation exactly? Until recently, it was not possible to systematically track the tinnitus perception over several weeks. With this research project, DBIS and TRI now want to offer a method to track the individual tinnitus perception with a smartphone application. Using the website in conjunction with his phone, a patient can systematically track the variation of his tinnitus and find out how it is associated with his daily routine and activities. The patient’s answers will also help TRI to learn to more about the daily variation of the tinnitus perception, its causes and effects.

Google PlayTM Store	iTunes® App StoreTM

About the TrackYourTinnitus team

TrackYourTinnitus was developed together by DBIS and TRI. The project team members are:

• Dr. Winfried Schlee (TRI)
• Susanne Staudinger (TRI)
• PD Dr. Berthold Langguth (TRI)
• PD Dr. Michael Landgrebe (TRI)
• Jochen Herrmann (DBIS)
• Rüdiger Pryss (DBIS)
• Prof. Dr. Manfred Reichert (DBIS)
• Christian Kippes (independent)

If you have questions, feedback or suggestions please don't hesitate to contact us under info(at)trackyourtinnitus.org.